Between Mother and Son

The relationship between mother and teenage son is getting trickier.  He, the solid blond toddler who was so ready with a giggle, the lover of planes, trains, and video games, the handsome Cub Scout standing at attention...I, the mother/teacher who always said I cared more about the child's heart than the academics, have come now to regular battle over the heart and the academics. 

Conversations with my husband have trailed back to our days as 8th graders and concluded our son is in a far better place than we were back then, as we desperately tried to find our identity within the walls of a middle school.  Yet, we didn't have to live with our teacher and principal, right?  The boundary lines are in strange places when you home school, and are always moving as you grapple with new stages of development, new levels of freedom, and new demands of academics. 


There are benefits.  I pray more, for one, than I do in peaceful times, and I am startled awake by God's gentle answers.  He says, "Look, I am working on that boy's heart.  Do you see the changing, forming, molding?  Do you see Me in his bright smile?  And look, I am working on you, too.  Did you notice how calm you stayed today?" 


And I say, "You're right!  I see it."


Why do we pray and then forget to watch?


Yesterday began with a snarl between us...him reiterating how much he hates a certain subject, me counting its benefits yet again, him growing silent, sulking.  Me praying, "Help."


And then it happened, a moment of reconciliation like rain in the desert.  He found me sitting on the floor in a spot of warm sun, looking at old photos crammed in a box; photos of him as a baby and toddler and goofy clown, with arms swung around his younger sisters, posed with the family in front of a backdrop of wonderful memories.  He moved toward me for a closer look, until our shoulders touched and soon we were laughing heartily together. 


I have an image in my mind now like a photograph.  Mother and son walking backwards on a timeline , so that they can attempt to move forward again, refreshed.